CBP Apprehended Over 153K Unauthorized Immigrants at the Southern Border in January

Are you concerned about the rate at which people are attempting to enter the country illegally?

Written by Eric Revell, Countable News

What’s the story?

  • Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released data on Friday revealing that apprehensions of people entering the U.S. illegally at the Southern border continued at a record-setting pace in January that puts fiscal year 2022 on track to exceed the all-time high set in fiscal year 2021, which ended in September.
  • CBP apprehended 153,941 people at the Southern border in January ― nearly double the 78,414 who were apprehended in January 2021. These figures exclude the number of “gotaways” whom CBP was unable to detain or who entered the U.S. undetected.
  • Over the first four months of FY2022, CBP has encountered 672,838 people attempting to enter the country illegally. That’s more than double the 296,450 apprehended in the first four months of FY2021. January was the 12th consecutive month with at least 101,000 apprehensions at the Southern border.
  • The number of unaccompanied minors apprehended in January was 8,777 ― a decrease from 11,893 in December; 13,934 in November; and 12,779 in October. If the current pace continues for the rest of FY2022, it would approach the all-time record total of unaccompanied minors apprehended in a fiscal year, which was 146,925 in FY2021.
  • The CBP chart below shows the total number of monthly border apprehensions from the current fiscal year, which currently has four complete months of data, compared to monthly totals from the three preceding fiscal years:

  • Nearly all of the CBP sectors at the Southern border saw an increase in the number of apprehensions in January 2022 compared to a year ago. Yuma saw the largest relative increase from 1,624 in January 2021 to 23,489 in January 2022 ― a 1346.4% spike. Del Rio experienced the largest increase in absolute terms with a year-over-year increase of 13,124 from 17,056 in January 2021 to 30,180 in January 2022. Only two sectors saw a decline in January 2022 compared to a year ago: Big Bend went from 2,669 to 2,340 (-12.3%) while Laredo went from 8,633 to 7,373 (-14.6%).
  • According to CBP’s latest figures for the Southern border, the agency has conducted life-saving search and rescue efforts 5,398 times in FY2022 to date and 1,993 of those occurred in January ― an increase from 1,036 in December. The current pace would eclipse the 12,833 search and rescue missions performed by CBP at the Southern border in FY2021.

(Photo Credit: CBP Office of Public Affairs photo by Kris Grogan via Flickr / Public Domain)